Towns | Town Life | Buildings

Richard’s memory for architectural detail was extraordinary and many pictures celebrate great buildings but also the people living their lives around them. When he was 17 and the family moved from Bradford to Ilkley he missed the inner city and its busyness at first but soon came to love the quiet of small town or village and how it fitted into the land. Later, the experience of ports and docks excited him again, and the differences associated with this way of life for the inhabitants.

Chatsworth to Represent Sheffield at Play (1961)

oil on canvas - 304.8h x 426.7w (cm)

This is one of two murals commissioned for the annexe of the Teaching Hospital in Sheffield. That has been knocked down to make way for a more modern and spacious building and unfortunately because of their huge size these two canvases are rolled up and in storage. Nowhere has yet been found for them to be hung and seen by the Sheffield people which is a shame.

York Festival Triptych (1956)

oil on canvas - 130.8h x 196.2w (cm)

This is one of Richard’s largest pictures and the detail is breath-taking. The actual Festival theatre is taking place in the top left hand corner in the Abbey ruins. Meanwhile the street Miracle play crossing a bridge is on the move and free to viewers of all sorts.

Bradford (1918)

oil on thin board - 15.5h x 15.3w (cm)

This early oil painting gives a very fresh and vivid feeling of a street in Bradford in the snow in the early years of the 20th century towards the end of WW1.